Author: Norman Eric Peterson

Motorcycle Pilgrimage chapter 4

/ Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment




Bruce left a week or so after we arrived in Berkeley. He had enough adventure after our ride out. I am not certain how he got back. He stayed over in town at Earl Crabb’s (Humbeads Map of the world creator) place for a while and in Hollywood at John Braheny’s. After that, we lost touch. I stayed on at the mansion on Shasta Road in Berkeley.

I got a good job at the local art theater as a projectionist. We showed odd films like ‘The Apu Trilogy’ and it was fun. I knew carbon Arc’s as that was what we used on our ships to signal night or day. They were bigger than the movie projectors. Bright.

I Showed a picture about a crazed sniper that had a scene where he was shooting a movie projectionist just as he was peeking through a small window to see the next switchover to the second projector. It’s old tech. There are small white dots in the upper frame of the movie, on the third dot I would pull the lever to turn one on and the other one off. In the movie, the sniper was drawing his bead at that changeover time. Exactly. I started crouching down and getting weirded out. Post production staff humor.

    I had to clean up all the popcorn boxes after the show and it took a toll on my back. I was most in a front bend from all the riding and bouncing about as well. I got some doctoring and workman’s comp for a while. I had to lie on a window seat bench at the mansion until Charlie moved out. I got his room and things were doing OK. An interesting German pilot was in another room down the hall and he had a fireplace.

    There were other tenants. An English professor that taught at the college and an odd girl that had emotional fits now and then. She would throw herself down the stairway on occasion and sob at the bottom. I went over and held her until she calmed down once or twice. I knew what she needed as I can be like that. Self esteem and frustration in communication for sure. The other tenements were lase and used to it. I was used to the feeling from childhood. I am worthless, unloved.

    The owners were overseas acquiring art work of some sort and life there was working out for me. It seemed to fit as I was another art fixture in the house as were we all. Musicians, Professors, An ex Fighter pilot from WWII and the like. Nice place, fireplaces everywhere and you could see the San Francisco bay from the western windows. 5 Million dollars plus even then. Rent was affordable!

    I fell in with a crowd of Jaguar owners at the local coffee shop (Mr. Peets first one on the Northside) and they, of course, were as crazy as the rest of the Bay Area people were. Janis Joplin, Big Brother and the holding company, Grace Slick and Jimi Hendrix. Sly stone was somehow connected with the fighter pilot.

    It was gloriously crazy in 1968 and I was finally where I wanted to be. Living with people that were on the same path of Timothy Leary’s dreams of “Smash your brains, Crack Em’” LSD, pot and other drugs flowed down Lombard street to Haight Ashbury and then across the bay bridge to Berkeley. Mario Stavio and the free speech movement and my new friend that played Boogie Woogie piano, crazy Mike. A Chinese Jag mechanic in the mix and I fit right in with my Martin D-28.

    Joan Baez played a parlor Martin and she was . Bob Zimmerman was still back in Minneapolis at the 10 o’clock scholar getting warmed up for world fame. It was pretty good.

    One night, crazy mike had us jumping with his piano. It was an upstairs apartment and there came a knock on his door. It was the police. They told him after 10 he had to stop making ‘noise’ as the neighborhood was not on board with bold rhythm. Oscar Peterson stuff with swing extraordinary skill.

    The next night, at precisely ten o’clock, mike blasted out the window with a big battery bullhorn. “You may have noticed that I have stopped playing” He did and we loved it.

    Joan Baez played a parlor Martin and she was the musical ballerina of folk. Bob Zimmerman (Dylan) was still back in Minneapolis at the 10 o’clock scholar getting warmed up for world fame with Joan and other class acts. They all had National Enquirer possibilities but Rolling Stone was rolling of off the press along with Mad Magazine. Hipsters and hucksters abounded in the bay area and I got entwined with Sly Stone after a little more adventure. Any musician that was riding the surf roaring under the golden gate was there.

    Music was on the move in the bay area and we were riding that wave. We thought we were pretty neat and inside the sine wave of progress and coolness. Rebels with a cause. Obnoxious with charisma.

    It was pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

    photo of Bruce Berglund and his guitar.

    Motorcycle Pilgrimage chapter 2

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    Sitting at their campsite, Bruce and I talked the day over. “we agreed no weapons with” We wondered what we would do if the local boys came as told they would. “We’ve got the tent poles that we aren’t using tonight!” I believed this was Bruce’s solution. “We can carry those poles under our right arms so that only the metal Farrell’s show! They will think we have shotguns” We wondered if this was possible. “Is that the best idea you’ve got?” It was settled and the we settled in our sleeping bags under the stars on this moonlit night.

    Sure enough, around midnight, the sound of slamming pickup doors was heard from the parking lot of the campground. “Well, here we go” We started walking towards the young toughs side by side on the pathway. Our tent poles pointed at the ground and the moonlight reflecting off of metal exposed. The metal that was just meant to join one pole to another. “ Don’t shoot till we’re a little closer” Bruce said in a very loud whisper. Those small town punks took one look at us and those pickup doors slammed shut again. There was a roar of a small block engine, and the townies were gone.

    Not long afterward, the town cop showed up with his squad and somewhat surprised asked: “You boys OK?” Sure, quiet night officer we answered. Puzzled and baffled that weren’t a couple of bodies lying about, the town cop nodded his head and drove off. Tipped off by the townies, just checking for the carnage. we decided to break camp early and slipped away at midnight. Headed for the Oklahoma panhandle and close to the famous route 66. Seemed a safe and promising thing to do.

    The next town was indeed in Oklahoma and it was a bright Sunday morning when Bruce pulled over to the side of the road with his engine racing up and down. “What’s going on Bruce?” It seemed the BMW did not want to connect the engine with the desired ahead motion. Sitting next to one another on the ground of the well groomed grass, we began to disassemble the drive train of the bike. We were getting pretty good at those sorts of things. A short time later Bruce announced: “It’s the woodruff key on the driveshaft, it’s sheared off!”

    Looking at the Sunday afternoon one horse town was not encouraging. There seemed to be tumble weeds blowing down the short main street angled off the highway, no one was in sight and there was no traffic heard nor in sight. Great. Suddenly, A tall young man was in back of them asking “What’s the matter boys?” They looked at the young man and said rather sadly, “sheared a woodruff key on the driveshaft.” That man didn’t even blink about a motorcycle having a driveshaft and in a calm voice said: “My father owns the hardware store and I’ve got the keys, lets go see what we can do”

    Astonished, they followed him and his keys as he walked down an alley to a door and opened it. Turning to them, he said: “go to that Graymills cabinet over there and pull open that top drawer. There, back in the third compartment, 8 millimeter.?.take a few” They took about three of them. Back to the bikes Bruce put the key in the driveshaft and fit with a perfect ‘snick’ We turned to eagerly thank the tall young man and he was nowhere in sight. It came out as: “Hey Bruce…were did he go?” It wasn’t until decades later I laughed and finally got the line “My father owns the hardware store and I’ve got the keys” Of course, the Lord, our Father owns everything!

    (To be continued) Norm Peterson / Jack Gator

    Motorcycle Pilgrimage chapter 3

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    .. After the dust- bowl town with the Angel and the woodruff key, we were on Route 66 and westward bound. Gas was cheap back then our slim wallets still had enough to get to ‘the city’ in California.

    The bar up ahead looked promising after all that desert in Nevada. It appeared to have just been dropped into place. A small parking lot with two cars, one of them with California plates. There was literally, nothing visible from horizon to horizon. Just the endless highway. A few dust devils and actual sagebrush.

    Out of the saddles and into the bar we strode, awkwardly as riding can do things to your body that doesn’t relate to standing and walking. It’s just the odd feeling from all that vibration that your hands are on opposite arms. Weird. Akin to my illusions at sea when land would not be visible. After a few weeks in the ‘middle’ if the ocean, it seems the ship is standing still and the water is flowing by!

    Any way, most motorcycle riders get the upside down hands thing after 100 miles or so, no one talks about it. Our bikes were a little rougher on the road than today’s huge highway cruisers. Bruce’s BMW was a little smoother than the Indian Tomahawk/Enfield. I shudder even now thinking how it would have been on the 600cc Matchless single.

    So after we shook off the muscle memories and went in, the bar had two women patrons and the barkeep. The two women were older and looked at those two young men like coyotes gazing upon a nice jack rabbit nearby. Smiles and almost instantly, an offer to cool down with a few cold ones. ‘Sure’! After a few (the women were drinking hard stuff) it was revealed that one of them was a California Senator and the other woman was the Senator’s aide.

    Betty Fiorina was the Senators name, I never forgot it. It pops up now and then in the news and in my mind.

    Lots of laughs and some mild flirtation ensued and it was time for the gals to hop into their Buick convertible and us to kick start the bikes and weave down the highway. Blood alcohol content, who cares? Not a car in sight and road hazards were an occasional sign and a few lizards or ruckchucks. 1. If you noticed, motorcycles now do not have kick starters. You have seen them in movies where you heave your body up in the saddle and push hard on the way down onto a pedal on the right side of the machine. It usually started on one kick.

    Class act meets Brando and Lee Marvin and no one knew what to do except drink and laugh. Much later, a decade or two, I caught a name on some senate bill and it’s the same last name of the Senator they met. Family business. There was a photo and she looked very trim and self assured. Splitting image of mom.

    Onward to Northern California and the back entrance to Berkeley on Shasta Road. Bruce was confident, I was just stunned. The place we wheeled up to had several chimneys, a tile roof and a pretty good view of the San Francisco bay . More class and style than either of us had ever experienced.

    An old friend of Bruce’s, Charlie Jirousek, lived there with about six other people. He was a luthier and built guitars out of Brazilian Rosewood. So he was broke too. He also had a massive Malamute, North, that shed hair at a bodacious rate. A month later, Charlie covered the C.F. Martin logo on the tuning head with one of his, a mother of pearl arrow. His guitar business was called ‘Arrowhead’ I was concerned that even at this time, the Martin logo would encourage theft. It works. To this day musicians that hear of play it remark on it’s tone and beauty. “what is it?” I tell them to look inside the sound hole. Martin D-28.

    Charlie had a big sack full of the hair and stated someday he would make a shirt out of it. 4 decades went by until the shirt appeared. It had an odd smell and dogs seemed attracted to Charlie. So The three of them spent a lot of time around the main living room fireplace playing guitars and eating peanut butter from Charlie’s jar. A half gallon jar. White bread used now and then. It was enjoyable for me to meet another person as pleasant and eccentric as we were.

    To this day, I still enjoy a peanut butter sandwich with heavy butter on both slabs of bread. Add the thick crunchy style peanut butter. Those sandwich’s were free and the music was excellent and heart felt. A lot of joy around that fireplace.

    We all knew what our lives were like as we played the same music. Leadbelly, Blind Blake, Willy McDowell. It’s called country blues music. There was one tune, Old Country Rock that just hit the spot. We played it a lot. It was pretty good. Norman Peterson / Jack Gator

    1. Ruckchuck . An animal nearby in the weeds that makes a lot of noise. Scared away by an aluminum cooking pot swinging in front of our headlamps.

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    Motorcycle Pilgrimage The beginning chapter 1

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment


    The trip was instantly planned with my new friend Bruce, just back from ‘Nam’ and anxious for safer adventures. I was fairly fresh from overseas as well, with Comservron 6 and several tours in the Mediterranean and the six day war with Russia and Egypt. We were on the Israeli side. It was dicey over there too. Lot’s of military muscle being deployed. Older Navy people know the nomenclature. It seemed our nation was muddled up in several wars. Fubar was the term. Bruce and I knew the score, or we thought we did. I was better off at sea. Bruce had just recovered from the Jungle and I had just recovered from a shipmate trying to kill me. We were both suffering from PTSD and it felt so good to just go on our own. It was the summer of love and we needed some of that whatever it was, it sounded good to us.

    Older motorcycles and younger riders seemed just the solution of affordable transportation.

    We had an easy itinerary: Route 66 to California. Just head south and take a right. Back in the days of paper maps and freedom to improvise and walk the line between a long trip and danger. I sold my Austin Healey Sprite and Bruce had his Chevy Bel-Aire to trade for the bikes. I was offered a Matchless 500 single cylinder. I chose an Indian-Enfield 500 twin instead. Bruce got a BMW 500. The offer to me was a Matchless single cylinder. I declined that one for a long trip. It was like riding a vibrating pogo stick.



    Off they went, both bikes with ‘sissy bars’ and their guitars strapped on behind us upright and some luggage and a camping tent. Money and a hunger for vistas unseen.

    Good weather and full tanks and some spare parts, we left to head south first and catch 66 down by the Oklahoma panhandle. Camping was first choice and other than that, we didn’t have a clue about what was ahead. Just in our early twenties and now free to make our own travel choices.

    Bruce had made some friends when he got back from China Beach. Those friends of his lived in ‘the city’ out west and that was good enough a destination as any. Money was tight. First adventure was in Omaha. Somehow we met a group of hippies, and were embraced as sojourners to the headquarters of the love movement; San Francisco.

    The hippies took us to their home, right across the street from the big race track, Aksarben, (that odd name is Nebraska backwards). Beds available and very starry eyed girls seemed a pretty good place to stop over. Schedule? There wasn’t any and that allowed leeway. Waking up the next morning, both of us were greeted with a breakfast treat of a small pill. Guaranteed to be an interesting experience. The only thing I remember was being taken to Arby’s and trying to order food. The colorful mushrooms growing out of the counter mans chef’s hat got in the way of comprehending things. ‘Have you ever been experienced?’ went the song of the times.
    A quick goodbye and we were back on the road for adventures that seemed to be working out pretty good, so far.

    On down the road to Kansas and an uneventful ride until we stopped in Liberal. Foolishly, but with great enjoyment, we gave rides to more starry eyed and bored young girls on our bikes; exotic transportation. the young men on the sidewalk gave squinty eyed stares, the Clint Eastwood trouble for you look. We thought as veterans of two different wars, we deserved good attentions from everyone. We were not wearing our old uniforms.

    It was great fun until the town’s police chief approached us and asked if we would like to stay overnight in the town jail! At first thought we wondered what we did wrong that would incur incarceration. The chief stated: “ It would be safer in my jail for you both.”


    The doors to the cells only open one way and we declined the offer. that single officer in town told them: “Them boys is a comin’ for you tonight at your camp site”. “Oh. Well, we’ll take our chances chief , thanks for the offer.” was our reply.

    The local young toughs came after them later that night.. (to be continued in Motorcycle pilgrimage series)

    The Joy of Music and Art

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    As it is, so shall it always be. Music, an indescribable and fleeting thing. The string is plucked, the drum
    resonates, the bowed instrument plays one note that blesses the fleeting sound. One second it is there.
    An eternal second, there is no time involved and the resonance goes into eternity and the joy flows
    abounding within the players and listeners.


    There are many things that liken to music, draftsmanship or painting the light. Again, the romance of the
    stunning scene to the love of creating the painting. Both the musician and the painter are vulnerable to
    elevation of self. We do not realize the breaking of our admiration of our talents and contributing one or two notes or a splash of sienna releases real joy and appreciative laughter of the hearing and seeing the Master of all of it.


    Images of musicians with the anticipated music played on perfect instruments abound. Especially for ones
    that have felt the joy and dance with a word sung or a set of notes played. An image from Lewis: “If
    one could just read the score of that heavenly music, they would never be ill nor grow old.”


    So many years, so many bands and sitting in with other bands. I was consumed with applause. For
    me. A brief smile from a waltzing couple as they swirled past the stage as I played Faded Love is still remembered. The pride of even placing in a fiddle contest would make me proud. Of myself. I am not as fast these days (As I edit this I am 80 years old) and actually, that helps. There were so many
    instrumentalists in my life and the attaining of blazing speed with difficult passages was the goal and
    passion of so many. Just listen to bluegrass sometime. The song is over before you can even remember
    the words. Nice music, don’t misinterpret my words here. Nice music and really nice people play
    bluegrass. There were, unfortunately, some artists that would overplay and smirk at my waltz’ or
    jazz. That is OK now, I know who was guiding my music in that instantaneous beauty.

    Emulating Bob Wills and his stunningly beautiful waltz’ was my goal. I tried the classic Orange
    Blossom Special when playing the bar circuit. I would not play it until the third set when the patrons
    were drunk enough to enjoy my fiddling of that song. I did OK with it, even the double stop slides, but it was not brilliant as the original. Still, it brought hoops and yells and that satisfied my need of acceptance.


    I went to playing in the church..not A church, but THE church was my now my wish. A little mandolin to fill in the missing notes that I hear in spirit. The mandolin is referred to as the violin’s ‘walking stick’. (The tuning is the same as the violin) my last worship leader mentioned when the really high notes of
    vibrato ring out, it made him laugh inside. Good description of joy in worship.

    Third position on the mandolin is a LOT easier than on the fiddle. It has frets. Those incredible stratospheric violin passages are pretty swell if your fingers are doing OK and you spend every day in the practice room. Playing Since a person was young child helps. I am in awe and joy when I hear those players. I wonder what they are thinking and feeling during those concertos.


    So I needed applause to feel wanted and accepted. Now there is joy in worship heard or played when everything makes a brief tapestry of beauty. Offered to Jesus with love and adoration. It’s the only thing that goes to another plane of experience for me now.

    As it is, so shall it always be. Music, an indescribable and fleeting thing. The string is plucked, the drum
    resonates, the bowed instrument plays one note that blesses the fleeting sound. One second it is there.
    An eternal second, there is no time involved and the resonance goes into eternity and the joy flows
    abounding within the players and listeners. Nevertheless, beware!

    ” Every poet, musician and artist, but for grace, are drawn away from the love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling, till, down in deep hell, they cannot be interested in God at all, but only what they say about Him” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce

    Applause reflects how others in the room feel that too. It’s heart felt. The thing is, that I now know they are really applauding the beauty revealed of Jesus, the creator of worship music hearts and all things. It’s pretty good. Playing or listening, it’s all the same thrill of eternal music on that sea of flaming glass.

    We were blessed indeed by grace to avoid the love of the telling when my family worshiped for four years alone in a house of prayer in a storefront on main street in our local town. We had all the sound system stuff and a drum cage too. There were chairs for anyone who wished to be there, but most of the time we were alone. It fostered intimacy with our Lord. When we left after the building was sold, we had a last set that lasted for hours and started it at 7:20 in the evening. After an obvious finishing song, we looked at the clock facing us and it was 7:20.

    Norm Peterson and Jack Gator

    Jump in the Water

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    “Let’s go down, come on down, let’s go down to the river to Pray” 1.

    How many decisions do you make in a lifetime? How many in a day? How about right here, right now? Life seems to be mostly decision making. All the little things we have to constantly consider. Where, what and how mostly.

    The very important decisions can be interesting. Myself, I was given an interesting decision problem five decades ago. I made the right decision because I am still alive. Things like that leave an impression on us. “Are you serious?” Some decisions are not deal breakers, they are quite simple and are mostly easy to make as well.

    A few decades ago, I was given the choice to be Baptized. I was what is called ‘New in the faith’ up to that choice, I wanted to be just like God and be my own man. Just look into my heart and obey what I thought was right. Of course, I was desperately wicked as are all of us. I didn’t have a clue about those things of trust, faith, grace and repentance.

    The pastor that came to minister to my dying mother spoke to me instead of her because she had died the night before his appointment. We sat at the kitchen table when he came and he asked me questions about life. I spoke of Gandhi and Buddha and all the rest. He then asked me it wasn’t about them. it was about me. He gave me a C.S. Lewis book, (Mere Christianity) and I read it. It read it a lot. It’s one of my ‘go to books’

    Julie and I began attending his church that weekend and they did a funeral with all the trimmings for my mom with no charge. They even lit a candle every Sunday for a month for her. It was astounding and humbling. Not what I expected after some ‘bad’ experiences with the church in general. Usual things we go through as broken people resenting anyone that tells us there is a mending to that brokenness. “Sure, easy for you to say.” Etc. Not really understanding that narrow walk. An iron worker 50 stories up on a big I beam, just walking. What if I go off the path? “The wrong path is soft underfoot, an easy incline with no warning signs.” 2.

    That Christmas I was at a cantata in a very local church and as the choir sang ‘Mary did you know’, I was stunned by a man in the choir who spoke the words of the song. Did you know, that those tiny hands flung the stars into the sky. I did not believe in evolution and said to myself, someone had to do it! The song went on and I began to cry. “It’s all true, it’s all true” I then knew Jesus was Lord of all and have never turned back since that time.

    A while later, Julie was out walking on our road, up the hill from our mailbox and the Lord spoke to her about being baptized. When she shared it with me, it seemed like a good thing to do. Infant baptism just not adequate for her and thinking about it, not for me either. I was whisked away as a baby by my Uncle and baptized in Duluth. It seemed to not be my decision at that time. We felt that Baptism falls a little short of John’s style. “Repent and be Baptized” Was a breath of sweet air when Julie said that and we agreed together to do so. We both had a few things to repent of. So the Methodist camp where Julie and I had our first romance (Spirit Lake) was the place where we went to be Baptized. Friends came and we put agates in our pockets to give them as mementos. They stood and watched us as we were baptized good and thoroughly.

    Pastor Barry did our Baptisms differently. He had never done a full immersion baptism before. He dunked us three times. “For the Father.. for the Son.. and for the Holy Spirit.” I was down on that perfect sand bottom and saw him above in the clear water. When I came up I knew he was looking right at me the whole time. I asked him, “what did you see when you were looking at me?” “A dead man” he replied.

    I came up somewhat wet and let go of my nose. Then Julie and I started giving the agates from our pockets to our friends on the dock. They were beautiful as they glistened and we burst out saying because they have been in the water with us and we are clean too.

    That was the beginning of a new us, especially a new me. I needed to die and it was a long process and still is. I am getting better as are we both. No longer dead inside but open to our King and Savior as he began breathing life in us. It’s not an instantaneous change because we have to listen and learn from Jesus and read the instruction manual He has graciously given us.

    We are learning, every day it seems. Loving God and ourselves as his own and then loving all those people he gives us to love. The neighbor thing to say it, a lifetime to learn. Akin to washing one’s hands in a way. Scrubbing and washing clean. There are many things in our lives that pivot around those those words Jesus gave to us: “Love one another as I have loved you” The love your neighbor as you love yourself was stymied until I forgave myself and began loving my life with the Lord. He started it and He will complete it! Now I know how good it is.

    The simplest and hardest thing for me to do. Every day, if I listen well and surrender myself to Him, He guides me to this new life. Jump in the water and it ain’t no trouble if you can, walk on the water. He offers his strong right hand and His mighty arm to us and lifts us out of death into life.

    One day in Kansas City, I was sitting in a prayer room, waiting to be prayed over for my strained leg. I had a clear vision as I dozed off to beautiful live worship music. Jesus appeared to me and we were swimming together with a side stroke. “I know you love to swim, do you want to go down? You can breathe down there.” How deep is it? I asked. He replied “How deep do you want to go?” I awakened, healed and started dancing a little for the group waiting to pray for me. I told them I wanted pray for them. “Sure, come on in!” ‘Jump in the water, got no trouble if you can, walk on the water‘ Michael Mayor

    It’s pretty good. Jack Gator Scribe

    1. Old spiritual song; ‘Down to the river to pray’ Picture courtesy of Arron Dahl

    2. C.S. Lewis the great divorce

    Three Eternal Notes of Music

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    There it was, three sung notes that flooded memories and several dreams a few days later. The singer was featured as the closing song of a broadcast from Eagle Brook Church. It was Easter Sunday and I had seen the performance earlier in the week at my job at the Blaine campus.

    At the Easter Sunday broadcast I was stunned by the song ‘Because He Lives’ sung at the closing. The woman singing was at a live performance I was at several years earlier. It was held at a new Eagle Brook campus in Downtown Minneapolis, close to Christmas. A Jazzy Christmas.

    Eagle Brook church Minneapolis Campus

    I was an usher at that time and I requested to pray for the music team and the production crew. I stated by telling them that this concert is the Magna Carta of one of the attending people maybe all of them! Looking upon these teams sitting in the seats in front of the stage I began to do a simple prayer that our Lord would guide them to shine out His glory to those people. Especially the ones that were going to be moved in their spirit for the first time in their lives.

    After all, it was billed as Jazzy and that is a draw for a lot of music fans. And it was in the big city. It felt good and right to pray for them. At that time I was on the prayer team at the main campus in Lino lakes. Obviously, I love to pray. Anywhere, anytime Jesus tells me to do so.

    At the end of that concert, I went up to the third floor balcony to see if the sound was as good as I expected it to be. I listened through the open door and an usher asked me if I would like to have a seat. I hesitated and he said there was one seat and I went in to see that seat. It was right where I sat before with a perfect view and a young woman scooted over so I sat at the very end of the pew that overlooked the whole room. The sound was magnificent and well done.

    I was overcome with tears at one of the last songs as it was the song at another concert years before at a church near our home. (that I was reluctant to attend that night) that instantly sank into me at that time and I was convinced that Jesus created all things and me.Mary did you know is the song. “ Mary did you know those tiny hands flung the stars into the sky?” Yes I knew it was so. I always wondered how the universe came about. The big bang didn’t make sense. The song was spoken by one of the choir members and his face was directly facing me.

    I have never been the same since. I understand now that is called a testimonial moment.

    There I was at this Jazzy concert, years later, crying and holding my hands as high as I can, worshiping Jesus. The woman sitting next to me offered a Kleenex as she was weeping too. I got up to leave and thought I had caught her in my Pendelton shirt somehow and looked down to my left and she was holding my elbow. She said: “ My Father died on this date last year and I felt he was sitting next to me now” I did not know what to say and smiled and said “thank you!” as I left to help distribute hot cocoa to the crowd that was leaving.

    I went down soon afterwards, the cocoa volunteers had everything under control, so I walked down to the stage as the crew was taking things down and I told the singers what had happened. Angie and T, just sat down on the stage, folded up in a way, and I thanked them for doing so well that night.

    A few weeks later at the pre-service huddle at Lino Lakes, by Front of house booth I saw T there and again thanked her for her being there at the jazzy concert and singing that beautiful song. She said, “The whole concert was for you and what happened there” I did not know what to say. It was another moment I have never forgotten.

    This year when I saw her sing at that simulcast I knew it was her. She had been through a lot of physical medical issues that were shown to us before that last song in a short video. I listened closely.

    It was her. Those last three notes of the song she sang were almost similar in pitch and spirit as that concert three years ago. Operatic and powerful. I hardly moved off of my chair when the broadcast was over and the room began to mingle and talk. Chatting was impossible for me. Even afterwards when we all ate a wonderful prime rib dinner prepared by one of the members of that group, Dale, I could not speak. What would I say?

    I dreamed about it that night and the next and decided to write this column. It’s a Very personal experience and tenderly unforgettable. One of the most significant things I have been gifted with by Jesus. His gifts are like that often, unexpected, perfect and beautiful.

    It’s pretty good, Norm Peterson and the Gator

    An account of 2020’s Covid19 World Attack

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    It was getting dicey and worrisome for everyone. The quarantine was working somewhat, but the death toll was still climbing everywhere. The news-room personalities were beginning to visibly sweat, and it wasn’t the stage lighting. Cameras were fixed and it was obvious there was only one camera and no director for various shots and video inserts. Just one camera, and no one behind it. The ‘personality’ with a rumpled suit was reading off paper in front of him (no prompter) and the weather didn’t have any green-screen and the prognostication was very vague.

    Grocery stores had empty shelves, but that was all right because the parking lots were empty too. Gasoline was down to 75 cents but no one was buying except medical and military. Pleasant driving if you wanted to risk it. Roadblocks and interstate driving enforced with the national guard. No one moved unless you have paperwork displayed on the plates, fore and aft. The bridges were secured.

    The phones still worked and the power was pretty good. Amazingly, there were still areas where the fiber carried the internet but the load on that pipeline was enormous. Many reliable and local updates on where latest food and scavengers were moving and advice on security measures. Very little panic. Neighborhoods and townships were unifying and assistance grew within them.

    Medical triage and field medic people were in big demand and local connections worked pretty well. After the alerts where the looters were predicted, these honorable people were available to friend and foe alike. The locals began to see something they had not seen before. Compassion and a love for their fellow man, almost impossible to understand. When asked about this, the the medics and doctors would smile and reply with an understandable Gospel. Before it all, the immediate response to a faith message was “great, they’re going to tell me how I can be just like them if only I follow the rules” Now there was serious response to the joy found in listening to the Lord.

    There was dialogue and questions. Then we began to reveal how much we thought and felt about this similar ‘bad’ behavior in ourselves. Certainly we were not saints but somehow happy and …well, free. No rules given, just paying attention to the hunger for human contact everyone was experiencing.

    The somewhat simple explanation from these medical volunteers was easily understood. Many times there was a demand to have them visit again if possible. It was was new. There were no suits and ties, endorsement of connections. No tracts or phony glad handing. Real missionaries. The calmness and strength of these volunteers was what everyone needed. The usual isolation and fear of each other was being replaced with community and trust. After a short while, safe housing was set up for the desperate roaming families and civilization started to come back to stay. There was no doubt that Jesus had done a miracle and there was great hope and strength spreading throughout the land.

    Norm Peterson and Jack Gator

    Quotes That Allow Me to Write The Truth

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    I think good preachers should be like bad kids. They ought to be naughty enough to tiptoe up on dozing congregations, steal their bottles of religion pills, and morality pills, and flush them all down the drain. The church, by and large, has drugged itself into thinking that proper human behavior is the key to its relationship to God. What preachers need to do is force it to go cold turkey with nothing but the word of the cross—and then be brave enough to stick around while it goes through the inevitable withdrawal symptoms. … Robert Farrar Capon (1925-2013),

    Genuine controversy, fair cut and thrust before a common audience, has become in our special epoch very rare. For the sincere conversationalist is above all things a good listener. The really burning enthusiast never interrupts; he listens to the enemy’s arguments as eagerly as a spy would listen to the enemy’s arrangements. If you attempt an actual argument with a modern paper of opposite politics, you will find that no medium is admitted between violence and evasion. You will have no answer except slandering or silence. …G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936), 

    Was there a moment known only to God, when all the stars held their breath, when the galaxies paused in their dance for a fraction of a second, and the Word, who had called it all into being, went with all his love into the womb of a young girl, and the universe started to breathe again, and the ancient harmonies resumed their song, and the angels clapped for joy?

    …Madeleine L’Engle (1918-2007)

    O be calm and quiet all by yourself is hardly the same as sleeping. In fact, it means being fully awake and following with close attention every move going on inside you. It involves a self-discipline where the urge to get up and go is recognized as a temptation to look elsewhere for what is really close at hand. It is the freedom to stroll in your own yard, to rake up the leaves and clear the paths so you can easily find your way.

    …Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996)

     Here is my examination at the beginning of Advent, at the beginning of a new year. Lack of charity, criticism of superiors, of neighbors, of friends and enemies. Idle talk, impatience, lack of self-control and mortification towards self, and of love towards others. Pride and presumption. (It is good to have visitors – one’s faults stand out in the company of others.) Self-will, desire not to be corrected, to have one’s own way. The desire in turn to correct others, impatience in thought and speech.The remedy is recollection and silence Dorothy Day (1897-1980),

    Everything is made to center upon the initial act of “accepting” Christ (a term, incidentally, which is not found in the Bible) and we are not expected thereafter to crave any further revelation of God to our souls. We have been snared in the coils of a spurious logic which insists that if we have found Him we need no more seek Him. This is set before us as the last word in orthodoxy, and it is taken for granted that no Bible-taught Christian ever believed otherwise.. A. W. Tozer (1879-1963)

    It must be admitted that a few clergymen glory in the contrast between their status and that of ordinary Christians. They accept obeisance as a natural right; they monopolize public praying; they learn how to keep themselves in the limelight. There is something about the pastoral office which makes the temptation to egocentricity especially powerful. This is partly because the successful preacher is regularly praised to his face. His mood seems a far cry from that of Christ when He girded Himself with a towel and washed the feet of His followers.

    … Elton Trueblood (1900-1994)

    Emotion and Worship

    / Norman Eric Peterson / Leave a comment

    We’ve all heard it before in some context; “ you’re so emotional!” My response now to that is

    asking, What is wrong with that? We are reluctant to endorse or engage with emotion in many situations. Many psychobabble voices tell us to calm down, damp down our emotions and be calm and ‘clear headed’ I am not sure that is appropriate. I get emotional reading a book or listening to Beethoven’s beauty. Weeping with pleasure and letting my emotions release it.

    I have recently been trained in helping people to engage with emotions presented by ‘performance’ in worship music. Live performance, seen on a screen. It’s the same way we watch and listen without knowing we do so. Our eyes are drawn to different things as we move through our lives. We watch and are engaged with our surroundings. Constantly scanning the roads for dangers or beauty. Looking at the dash gauges. We don’t just stare straight ahead, we move our heads and eyes to see the world passing by us.

    I have been taught that those are the natural movements and as an example: When zooming in on a singer ( it’s called pushing in) we don’t do it fast. Unnatural, it causes a distraction. We change focus as we look near or far and that is controlled as well. We open or close our iris according to dim or bright reflections or light. That’s called shading. The excitement in video production is different angles and being shown changes and solos we miss if looking elsewhere.

    There are also many facets to production that are not noticed but essential. Lighting with movement, color, focus and the use of ‘haze’ to show light beams which catch our eye and help us focus where the light is showing us. Sound, very important and very technical for music and speech. To hear everything clearly, the spectrum of frequencies and to not overpower but to enhance experiences. If the sound feedback happens with a loud hum or a singer overpowers other singers, the room full of people instinctively swivel their heads to the place they know this control is. It’s called a sound booth solo and sound booths are called ‘front of house’ (more media lingo)

    It’s an art and if well done, not noticeable if done well, to a person watching or in the room during a live production. Movies are complex and a good example of these things too. You don’t even notice the technical camera work and perfect sound and dialogue that conveys a story. The story engages you and emotions below the surface, sometimes with excitement or tears.

    What is our story? The real stuff, the romance between us and Christ. God the Father lifts His eternal baton, Jesus intercedes for our failures and the Holy Spirit whispers songs of Faith and love to us.

    Emotion is a gift from God. I can only imagine Biblical descriptions that movies try to capture. The parting of the Red sea, burning bushes and the sea of glass mingled with fire. Do those things stir you? I have heard about production, “oh that’s done to get you emotional” Of course not. As the song says, I can only imagine being there and seeing these things. Ask Him when you show up at those Gates of Heaven. I believe He will be delighted to take you there and be one of those in the Cloud of Witness’. I will ask to help with the run through in the Holy Production for you if I get there first. You will be an operator and we can work together with a lot of help from the Producer and Director. Eternal Productions bring you the reality of all life.

    It’s Pretty good. Norm and Jack